We draw from social learning theory to propose a model in which humble behaviors displayed by higher-level leaders trickle down to lower-level team leaders and thereby indirectly promote team performance. We also propose that skip-level leader humility enhances the positive effect of team leader humility on team performance. Results based on time-lagged, multisource data from a sample of 128 work teams supported our model. Also, the trickle-down effect of leader humility is stronger in organizations with relatively high authority centralization. Our study thus links humble leadership of both direct and distant leaders to team performance and highlights the role of higher-level leaders in fostering humble behaviors of lower-level leaders.

Summary We argue that servant leaders convey expectations that one needs to behave self‐sacrificially, support others and perform well. Perceiving organizational politics heightens the concern of being seen as meeting these expectations and contributes to the belief that impression management is necessary to achieve desired outcomes. Thus, to make impressions consistent with a servant leader's expectations, employees enact exemplification, ingratiation, and self‐promotion, but doing so is emotionally exhausting. We conducted 2 three‐wave survey studies in China (Study 1) and the United States (Study 2), and the results generally supported our theory. Study 1 results showed that servant leadership had positive relationships with exemplification and ingratiation, although the theorized mediation effect of impression management was not significant. Study 2 replicated the positive relationships between servant leadership and impression management. Servant leadership also had positive indirect effects on emotional exhaustion through both exemplification and ingratiation. Perceptions of organizational politics strengthened the positive effect of servant leadership on impression management, resulting in a stronger indirect effect on exhaustion. We discuss the findings' implications for servant leadership research and practice.

Drawing on the theory of cognitive-affective processing system and that of construal level, we propose a moderated mediation model illustrating the relationship among abusive supervision, shame, construal level, and work withdrawal. We tested this model with a two-source time-lagged survey of 387 employees from 129 work teams in central and East China. Results revealed that abusive supervision had a positive association with the emotion of shame and supported the mediating role of shame linking abusive supervision to work withdrawal. Besides, our findings supported the buffering effect of construal level on the shame-work withdrawal relationship as well as the indirect relationship between abusive supervision and work withdrawal channeled through the emotion of shame.

Exploring the role of emotions in injustice perceptions and retaliation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(4), 629-643. Barkow, J. H. (1989). The elastic between genes and culture.

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